Leif Manger is professor in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. Manger was the head of the Department from 1999-2001. He also served as acting director of the Center for Development Studies (CDS) from 1992-1993 and from 1994-1996. The CDS was replaced by Unifob Global in 2007 and Manger held the position of Research Director of Unifob Global, a division for development and global research within the Unifob Company from 2007 until 2010. In 2009 the Unifob company changed it’s name to Uni Research, and Unifob Global became Uni Global. In 2010 the division was organized within the University again, and Manger returned to the department from the summer of 2010.

Manger's early individual research was related to the Sudan, and his research and publications include studies on household adaptations in oasis environments, mountain environments and savannah plains. He has also published works, including edited books, on topics such as trade, communal labor and socio-cultural processes of Arabisation and Islamisation. His latest monograph on Sudan is From the Mountains to the Plains: The Integration of the Lafofa Nuba in Sudanese Society. Manger has also edited books on issues such as a book on Islam, entitled Muslim Diversity. Local Islam in Global Contexts, and a book on the issue of diasporas, Diasporas Within and Without Africa: Dynamism, Heterogeneity, Variation. This work is continuing with a focus on African and Middle Eastern trade diasporas in to-day's China, currently with on-going fieldwork on Sudanese trade communities on the Chinese coast.

Manger has recently finished a monograph based on his Indian Ocean research which deals with the migration history of people from Hadramaut in Yemen to areas around the Indian Ocean region (Singapore, Hyderabad, Sudan and southern Ethiopia). The book is published on Berghahn and has the title The Hadrami Diaspora. Community-Building on the Indian Ocean Rim. He is also working on a book on anthropology and longue durée research within the Indian Ocean Region with the working title Empires, World Systems and Globalisation in the Indian Ocean. An anthropologist among macro-historians of the longue durée.

This focus, mixing a broad broad cultural historical understanding of a region with current events is also important in Manger's latest work on borders and borderland populations. Regionally this work focuses the borderland situations between Sudan and the new nation state of South Sudan, between post-Soviet Tajikistan, China and Afghanistan, and between contemporary China, Myanmar and India.

Manger has been teaching anthropology at all levels. He has also supervised a large number of Master, M.Phil and Ph.D students, both within the many projects he has generated, in the department, in his time at the Center for Development Studies (CDS) and at Unifob Global but also individual students. Manger was among the key persons in developing a special undergraduate course on Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at UiB. He has also been involved in distant education, developing courses relating to tropical biology and development. At present Manger has taken over the anthropology course in China (with Fudan University and Yunnan University of Nationalities), a one semester bachelor course with teaching every autumn.

Bøker

Manger, Leif Ole.2017.On War and Insecurity, Survival and Development in South Kordofan.255 sider.ISBN: 978-82-8062-659-2.

Manger, Leif Ole.1993."Public Schemes and Local Participation: some remarks on the presentsituation in the Southern Nuba Mountains Area of the Sudan." Seminarinnlegg på konferanse om "Agricultural Development and Planning", Universitetet i Khartoum, 1979.Sudan Notes and Records.

Manger, Leif Ole.1992.On the Study of Islam in Local Contexts.Forum for Development Studies.1.

Manger, Leif Ole.1991.Public Schemes and Local Participation: some remarks on the present situation in the Southern Nuba Mountains Area of the Sudan.Sudan Notes and Records.66.

Manger, Leif Ole.1989.Survival in the Short or Long Run? Perspectives on the Ecological Crisis in the Red Sea Region.Forum for utviklingsstudier.1.

Manger, Leif Ole.1998.On Becoming Muslim. The Construction of Identities among the Lafofa of the Sudan.Muslim Diversity: Local Islam in Global Contexts..[Mangler utgivernavn], Nordic Institute of Asian Studies.

Manger, Leif Ole; Secher-Marcusse, H.1994.Managing Pastoral Adaptions in the Red Sea Hills of the Sudan: Challenges and Dilemmas. In: Improved Natural Resource Management - the Role of the State versus that of the Local Community.Occasional paper Series no. 11, Int. Develop. Stud./Ph.D prog.Roskilde University.

Rosenquist, Catrin.2007.Mapping Darfur. Report from five seminars on the crisis in Darfur in February and March 2007.Life and Peace institute, ABF Stockholm, The Nordic Africa Institute, Stockholm and Uppsala.33 sider.

Manger, Leif Ole.2007.Building Peace in the Sudan: a reflection on local and regional challenges.2, sider 27-41. I:

1981 The Sand Swallows Our Land. Overexploitation of productive resources and the problem of household viability in the Kheiran - a Sudanese oasis. Bergen Studies in Social Anthropology, No. 24. Bergen: Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen.

1984 (ed.) Trade and Traders in the Sudan. Bergen Studies in Social Anthropology, No. 32. Bergen: Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen.

1987 (ed.) Communal Labour in the Sudan. Bergen Studies in Social Anthropology, No. 41. Bergen: Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen.

2010 The Hadrami Diaspora: Community-Building on the Indian Ocean Rim. New York: Berghahn.

Selected publications – papers – since 20002000 Local Resource Management in the Context of Civil War and Genocide: Identity, Cultural Tradition and Territory among the Nuba of the Sudan. Journal of Social Sciences [special issue on "Resource Management Through Indigenous Socio-Cultural Practices", ed. D.K. Behera], 4(1).

2001a Hadramis in Singapore – Making Muslim Space in a Global City, Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-faith Studies [special issue "The Impact of Transnational Processes on the Nation-State and National Cultures", ed. Michael Humphreys], 3(2).

2001-2002 Religion, Identities and Politics: Defining Muslim Discourse in the Nuba Mountains in the Sudan. Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, 4.

2002 September 11 and October 7: From Human Tragedy to Power Politics. Social Analysis, 46(1) (Forum: The World Trade Centre and Global Crisis, edited by Bruce Kapferer).

2004a Reflections on War and State and the Sudan. Social Analysis, 48(1) (Forum: The State, Sovereignty, War, and Civil Violence in Emerging Global Realities, edited by Bruce Kapferer).

2004b The Nature of the State and the Problem of a National Identity in the Sudan. In G. Sørbø and S. Pausewang (eds) Prospects for Peace, Security and Human Rights in Africa’s Horn. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.

2005a Understanding Globalization - The Need for a Historicized Anthropology. In K. Misra (ed) Social Anthropology in the Era of Globalization: Issues and Concerns. Hyderabad University Press.

2005b Understanding Resource Management in Western Sudan. A Critical Look at New Institutional Economics. In Quentin Gausset and Torben Birch Thomsen (eds) Beyond Territory and Scarcity: social, cultural and political aspects of conflicts on natural resource management. Uppsala: The Nordic Institute of African Studies.

2006a Connectivity in the Long Durée. Hadramis from South Yemen in an Indian Ocean World. In Øystein LaBianca and Sandra Scham (eds) Connectivity in Antiquity: Globalisation as Long Term Historical Process. The Contiuum International Publishing Group LTD, in series “New Approaches to Anthropological Archaeology”. London: Equinox Publishing, pp. 117-131.

2006d Globalization on the African Horn: Yemenis in Southern Somalia and Ethiopia. In Roman Loimeier and Rüdiger Sesemann, eds, The Global Worlds of the Swahili. Interfaces of Islam, Identity and Space in 19th and 20the Century East Africa. Bayreuth: LIT (Beiträge zur Afrikaforschung, Band 26), pp. 31-53.

2007a Ethnicity and Post-Conflict Reconstruction in the Nuba Mountains of the Sudan: processes of group-making, meaning production, and metaphorization. Ethnoculture, 1: 71-83. (see also http://www.emich.edu/coer/Journal/Manger.html).

2007, b) Building Peace in the Sudan: a reflection on local and regional challenges. In N. Shanmugaratnam, ed, Between War and Peace in Sudan and Sri Lanka: Deprivation and Revival. Oxford:James Currey, pp. 27-50.

2007c Hadramis in Hyderabad – From Winners to Losers. Asian Journal of Social Science, 35(4-5): 405-433.

2009a Colonial Anxieties in the Nuba Mountains. Religious rebellions as anti-colonial threats in Anglo-Egyption Sudan. Paper published in Henriette Hafsaas and Alexandros Tsakos, eds, Connecting South and North. Sudan Studies from Bergen in Honour of Mahmoud Salih Festschrift to Mahmoud Salih. Bergen: BRIC.

2009b Food and Identity. Processes of Cultural Change among the Lafofa Nuba of Central Sudan. In Nefissa Naguib, ed, Food and Foodways in the Middle East. Bir Zeit/Bergen: BRIC.

2009c “Resource Based Conflicts” in Western Sudan – some reflections on the role of the State. In Marcel Leroy ed, Environment and Conflict: Reflections on Darfur. Addis Abeba: UN University for Peace, Africa Programme (electronic publication: http://www.africa.upeace.org/documents/environment_files.pdf ).

2009e Nation-building within a collapsing state. Towards a "New Sudan"? Paper presented to international workshop on “Emerging Orders in Sudan under the CPA: Governance, Livelihoods and Markets”, held in Khartoum, October 3-6, 2009. Organized by the Collaborative Research Centre, SFB586, D9 and A4 in collaboration with the University of Juba.

2010a “State-Building in the Sudan – Between Triumph and Disaster ?” Paper presented at international workshop on “Challenging the State. Transmutations of Power in Contemporary Global Realities”. Held in Voss, November 13 - 15, 2009. Organized by Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen.

2010b “Sovereignties in the Making. Reflections on State and Society in the Sudan”, paper to be published in Bruce Kapferer, ed, Challenging the State. Anthropological Perspectives.

2010c Negotiating the Homeland: Diasporic Consciousness and Social Stratification Among Hadramis in the Indian Ocean. Paper presented at workshop within network on “Islam and Nationalism in Europe and the Muslim World (ISNAT) National Identity Politics in Comparative Perspective”- Conference IV: The Uses of History and the Politics of Memory in the Muslim World. At The Danish Institute in Damascus, 14-17 October, 2010.

2010d One Religion, Two Decades, Three Problems. Reflections on the Study of Islam by an Anthropologist. Paper presented at conference “New Horizons in Islamic Area Studies: Continuity, Contestations and the Future”. The Third International Conference organized by Islamic Area Studies (IAS) section of National Institutes for the Humanities Program (NIHU) in Kyoto, Japan, December 17-19, 2010.

2012, b) Resource Conflict as a Factor in the Darfur Crisis in Sudan. Paper presented at conference, “The Frontiers of Land Issues: embeddedness of rights and public policies”, Montpellier, May 17-19, 2006

2012, c) Three Leaders, Three Revival Movements, One Islam – thoughts on the new religiosity and globalization. Paper presented at conference, “Islamic Movements in Africa, - South of the Sahara, - Theoretical & Methodological Approaches to Islamic Activism”. Copenhagen, May 31-June 2, 2006

2012, d) Understanding the Ethnic Situation in the Nuba Mountains in the Sudan. How to Handle Processes of Group-Making, Meaning Production and Metaphorization in a Situation of Post-Conflict Reconstruction. Paper presented to the “1st. International Colloquium of the Commission on Ethnic Relations” (COER) for the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES), in Florence, Italy, July 7-9, 2006. To be published in the International Journal of Anthropology.

2012, f) Livestock, Land and Weapons: Understanding resource-based conflicts between agro-pastoral groups in Western Sudan. Paper presented at conference, “Paradigms of a Nomadic Mode of Living: Tenets and Perils of Co-existence”, Leipzig, November 30 – December 2, 2007

2012, g). Conflicts on the Move – looking at the complexity of the so-called “Resource Based Conflicts” in Western Sudan. Paper presented at conference (25-26 October, 2008) celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Khartoum, 1958 – 2008.

2012, i). Traders, Kings and Mariners. Movement and Interconnections in the Indian Ocean in Antiquity. Paper to be presented at conference on “Crossing Boundaries Between Africa and Asia – People, Trade, Biographies of Things”. At Centre de Cooperation Franco-Norvegienne, Paris, June 9-10, 2006. Organised by Unifob Global.

2012, j). “Nation-building within a collapsing state. Towards a "New Sudan" ? Paper (key note address) presented to international workshop on “Emerging Orders in Sudan under the CPA: Governance, Livelihoods and Markets”, held in Khartoum, October 3-6, 2009. Organized by the Collaborative Research Centre, SFB586, D9 and A4 in collaboration with the University of Juba.

2012, k). “State-Building in the Sudan – Between Triumph and Disaster ?” Paper presented at international workshop on “Challenging the State. Transmutations of Power in Contemporary Global Realities”. Held in Voss, November 13 - 15, 2009. Organized by Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen.

2012, l).“Sovereignties in the Making. Reflections on State and Society in the Sudan”, paper to be published in Bruce Kapferer, ed, Challenging the State. Anthropological Perspectives”.

2012 m). Negotiating the Homeland: Diasporic Consciousness and Social Stratification Among Hadramis in the Indian Ocean. Paper presented at workshop within network on “Islam and Nationalism in Europe and the Muslim World (ISNAT) National Identity Politics in Comparative Perspective”- Conference IV: The Uses of History and the Politics of Memory in the Muslim World. At The Danish Institute in Damascus, 14-17 October, 2010.

2012 n), One Religion, Two Decades, Three Problems. Reflections on the Study of Islam by an Anthropologist. Paper presented at conference “New Horizons in Islamic Area Studies: Continuity, Contestations and the Future”. The Third International Conference organized by Islamic Area Studies (IAS) section of National Institutes for the Humanities Program (NIHU) in Kyoto, Japan, December 17-19, 2010.

2012 o), “Different Countries – Similar Problems. Reflections on the break-up of Sudan”. in: International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES Round-Table), 44:2

2012 p), “From Clash of Civilizations to Battles of Sovereignties”. Paper presented at American Anthropological Association-meeting in Montreal, 16-20 November. Session title: Managing Muslim Migration in the 21st Century: Between Spiritual Geographies and Global Security Regimes. (To be published in book edited by Anita Fábos and Riina Isotalo, organisers of the panel).

2013, "Seek Wisdom Even Unto China". Some reflections on the Sudan-China relations and the implications for Sudanese development. Paper presented at Annual Conference for Postgraqduate Studies & Scientific Research in Humanities and Education Sciences, entitled "Towards a Confident Renaisance." University of Khartoum, 25-28 February. 2013.

Regional emphasis on the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean, with long-term field research in the Sudan, and shorter fieldworks in Yemen, Hyderabad, India and Singapore. Manger has recently taken up fieldwork in China.

Thematic focus on economic and ecological anthropology, development studies, planning, land tenure, trade, communal labour, Arabization and Islamization. Later on also on migration, diaspora, transnationalism and globalization, historical anthropology, comparative epistemology and interdisciplinarity.

Currently Manger is starting research on Muslim communities in China. In connection with his research Manger is also teaching courses for Norwegian and Chinese exchange students in collaboration with Fudan University in Shanghai (course on globalization studies) and with Yunnan University of Nationalities in Kunming (course on ethnic studies).

Manger has also initiated and headed a number of interdisciplinary projects. Among on-going projects with funding from the Norwegian Research Council is “Localizing Globalization: Gendered Transformations of Work in Developing Economies” (2010-2013). This is a basic research program including researchers in Bergen from Department of Social Anthropology, Department of Geography, the HEMIL Centre, and Chr. Michelsen’s Institute, all with research cooperation to researchers in the countries of field work (Indonesia, Peru, Ghana, Palestine).

Manger has initiated and directed several projects funded by NUFU, (Norwegian Universities’ Committee for Development, Research and Education). The latest NUFU-project was “Enabling Local Voices: The Gender and Development Forum” (2009 – 2012) which was a collaborative programme between University of Bergen and University of Bir Zeit, West Bank, Palestine.

Of recently finished projects "The Global Moments in the Levant" stands out as important, financed by the so-called “Storforsk”in the Research Council. The project ended in 2008/9, and the major results are summarized in a publication with the same title as the project, and edited by Manger and Øystein LaBianca.

In addition to the three projects mentioned Manger has initiated and headed the NUFU -funded projects “The Lower Jordan River Basin Research Programme” (a collaborative programme between University of Bergen and University of Bir Zeit, West Bank, Palestine, 1998 – 2008 - Finished); and “The East African Dryland Research Programme” (a collaborative programme between University of Bergen and Universities in East Africa - researchers from Addis Abeba, Makerere, Dar es Salaam, Khartoum. The East Africa component was organised by OSSREA -Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa, Addis Ababa - Finished). Among earlier projects funded by the Norwegian Research Council is “The Indian Ocean Programme” (a network programme including researchers in Bergen from Department of Social Anthropology, Department of History, Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Centre for Development Studies. Closing conference in Bergen, December 2000 - Finished).

In 2012 NORAD established "NORHED", a new funding structure to replace NUFU. In the first allocation of funding in June 2013 two projects in which Manger is involved received support. They both represent a continuation of the earlier collaborative activities that have been central to Manger's concerns. One project, "Borderland Dynamics in Eastern Africa. A network program for capacity building within departments of social anthropology in East African universities" continues the collaboration between Bergen (Department of Social Anthropology and Chr. Michelsens Institute) and the Universities in Khartoum and in Addis Ababa, and Makerere University in Kampala, also involving OSSREA in Addis. The second project, "Urban Transformation in the Southern Levant" represents a continuation of earlier links of collaboration between Bergen (anthropology and archaeology) and Bir Zeit University in Palestine, where the Department of Geography again is the main partner, as was the case in "The Lower Jordan-project". Both of the new projects will be operational from 2014 to 2018.

As a development consultant Manger has been involved in projects with various donors in the Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, Syria and Tajikistan. In Sudan he was also a resource person to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs negotiation team on parts of their involvement in the peace negotiations during the civil war period. As part of this involvement in conflict and post-conflict activities in the Sudan Manger has co-edited, together with Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed, a book on the conflict in Darfur, “Understanding the Conflict in the Sudan. Listening to Sudanese Voices”, and also together with Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed, a book focused on reconstruction and development in eastern Sudan, Peace in Eastern Sudan. Some Important Aspects for Consideration. Also as an outcome of his long-term engagement in the Sudan Manger initiated and is heading the project “Assisting Regional Universities in Sudan” (ARUS), which is a development oriented project, supported for the period 2010-2013 by the Norwegian Embassy in Sudan, aimed at assisting regional universities in producing development relevant information to ongoing reconstruction and rehabilitation after civil war. The project is run together with Ahfad University for Women with a focus on the following regional partners: Red Sea University, Kassala University and Gedaref University, all in East Sudan, and Dilling University, Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile University, both in the so-called “Marginal Areas”.

On 16 and 17 February 2011 Manger was a resource person for HD (Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue) in the process of “Popular Participation" in South Kordofan (Nuba Mountains) which was organised as part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) on Sudan. As participant at the "Southern Kordofan Preparatory Committee Retreat" on these dates, Manger gave two presentations based on written papers -- "The Land Issue” (5 pages) and "Religious, Social and Cultural Rights" (5 pages).

Manger was also a resource Person in the Chinese oil company SINOPEC's seminar entitled “Government and Public Relations. Development of Relationship with Local Partner, Local Resource Management Authority and Local Community in Resource Countries” organised 5-8 December 2011. Held in Xiamen Jingmin Central Hotel, China, and co-organized with MLR-CGS and PETRAD-CCOP, Manger particpated with two prepared talks -- "Political Risk and Instability in selected Middle East Countries”, part One (6 December): "Iran vs. USA, Iraq" and part two (7 December): "Yemen, Sudan".